Head coach of “Kharkov Falcons” Valery Plekhanov He commented on the home wins against Rivne (83:76) and Kyiv-Basket (78:57), which allowed the team to maintain second place in the standings.

– First of all, I would like to express my gratitude to the employees and management of BC “Dnepr” for the warm welcome and good conditions for our house tour. A special thank you to our incredible fans who create a truly great atmosphere at Shinnik during the matches. Their support gave the team a feeling of home and helped us achieve a positive result.

As for the matches, both fights turned out to be very difficult. We may not know it when we look at the final scores of each match, but both the first and second matches were a tough test of character and strength for us. In the first match we faced Rivne, which has always been a difficult opponent for us. It is still very difficult for us to play against the hard and sticky basketball that the Rivne team tries to impose on its opponents in every match. We could not gain a comfortable advantage in the score for most of the match and the competitive struggle continued throughout the match. I am happy that the team played well in defense at the right time and started playing aggressive and fast basketball from the second half and scored us 27 points in the fast break. This was exactly the main guarantee of our success in this match. Even though Rivne made very difficult three-point shots and had an incredible accuracy rate of 50%, we managed to keep the necessary distance in the score and win the match. Besides the main task of winning and repaying the debt for the defeat in the first round, we had to not overload the main players and be ready to fight for second place in the Super League the next day.

As a team, we were fully prepared for the Kiev-Basket match, for which we carried out a very meticulous preparation process. Just before going on the field, I felt an energy in the players and saw in each of them the maximum desire to win this match. We successfully analyzed the tactical development of the Kiev-Basket team, stopped the initial tempo and played quite well in rebounds. In this match too, we managed to prevent rival leaders Yegor Sushkin and Mikhail Bublik from revealing themselves. As a result, Kyiv could not play basketball; Only 57 points scored per game is another proof of this; The worst indicator of “Kyiv-Basket” this season. We managed to correct the mistakes we lost in our last match in the cup.

I would like to point out that in this tour, we used 11 players on the field in the first game and 12 in the second game. Our biggest advantage this season compared to other clubs is our rotation width and the faster we bring back our injured players, the stronger we will be as a team. Of course, not everyone is ready to spend a lot of time on the field every match. After quite serious injuries, I could not give Dmitry Martynov and Nikita Bezyma a lot of playing time, but I tried to provide them at least some time on the field so that they could quickly get back into shape. The first matches of this season were played by Vyacheslav Kiktev, who was still trying to adapt to our system. The adaptation process is going well.

I am happy for our players who believed in themselves and achieved the desired result. We are now on the right track and after our home tour, we are preparing for the upcoming matches with a positive perspective.